Kamala Harris urges Congress to take action on policing

“We mourn with you and the people of our country mourn with you,” Harris told the von Nichols family.

Harris said the beating of Nichols by police officers was an act of violence that violated the police’s stated duty to ensure public safety.

“It wasn’t in the interest of public safety because you have to ask yourself, wasn’t it in the interest of public safety that Tire Nichols would be with us today? Didn’t he also have the right to security? So when we talk about public safety, let’s understand what it means in its truest form. Tire Nichols should have been safe,” she said.

Harris called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, which aims to tackle police bias, the use of excessive force and racial profiling.

“We should not hesitate and we will not refuse. It’s non-negotiable,” Harris said.

Reverend J. Lawrence Turner called Nichols “a good man, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a man” who left too soon and “denied his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of des Happiness, denied the dignity of his humanity, denied the right to see the sunset another day, hug his mother, hang out with his friends, hold his child and the right to grow old.”

“As we celebrate Tire’s life and comfort this family, we share with this nation that the repeat of this episode creating hashtags for black lives has been canceled and will not be renewed for another season,” Turner said. “We have come and we will overcome.”

In the three weeks since Nichols’ death, five police officers have been fired and charged with murder. Your special unit has been disbanded. Two other officers were suspended. Two Memphis Fire Department paramedics and a lieutenant were also fired. And more discipline could come.

But Wednesday is about Nichols, a 29-year-old skateboarder and amateur photographer who made boxes at FedEx, made friends on morning visits to Starbucks, and always greeted his mom and stepdad with a sunny “Hello, parents!”

Nichols was the baby of her family, born 12 years after his closest siblings. He had a 4-year-old son and was working hard to better himself as a father, his family said.

Nichols grew up in Sacramento, California and loved the San Francisco 49ers. He got to Memphis just before the coronavirus pandemic and got stuck. But he was fine with it because he was dating his mother, RowVaughn Wells, and they were incredibly close, she said. He even had her name tattooed on his arm.

Friends at a memorial service last week described him as cheerful and friendly, quick with a smile, often goofy.

“This man walked into a room and everyone loved him,” said Angelina Paxton, a friend who traveled to Memphis from California for the memorial service.

Sharpton gathered the Nichols family and local activists Tuesday night at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis. The historic landmark is where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech the night before he was assassinated nearly 55 years ago.

“This is not about politics; it’s about justice,” Sharpton said. “People come from all over the world, and we come because we are all Tire now.”

The deaths of Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky and Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police sparked protests against racial injustice across the country.

Nichols, who was black, was beaten after police stopped him on January 7 for an alleged traffic violation. The video, released after pressure from Nichols’ family, shows officers holding him down and repeatedly hitting, kicking and hitting him with batons while he screamed for his mother.

Nichols’ death was the latest in a series of early police reports of their use of force, which were later found to have minimized or omitted mention of violent encounters.